UK rolls out the shots, starts vaccinating against COVID.
LONDON >> A nurse rolled up 90-year-old Margaret Keenan’s sleeve and administered a shot watched round the world — the first jab in the U.K.’s COVID-19 vaccination program kicking off an unprecedented global effort to try to end a pandemic that has killed 1.5 million people.
Keenan, a retired shop clerk from Northern Ireland who celebrates her birthday next week, was at the front of the line at University Hospital Coventry on Tuesday to receive the vaccine that was approved by British regulators last week.
The U.K. is the first Western country to deliver a broadly tested and independently reviewed vaccine to the general public. The COVID-19 shot was developed by U. S. drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech. U.S. and European Union regulators may approve it in the coming days or weeks.
“All done?” Keenan asked nurse May Parsons. “All done,” came the reply, as hospital staff broke into applause and also clapped for her as she was wheeled down a corridor.
The second injection, in a fitting bit of drama, went to an 81-year- old man named William Shakespeare from Warwickshire, the county where the Bard was born.
The fanfare was good cheer to the nation, if but for a moment. Authorities warned that the vaccination campaign would take many months, meaning painful restrictions that have disrupted daily life and punished the economy are likely to continue until spring. The U.K. has seen over 61,000 deaths in the pandemic.